Tried Men and True, or Union Life in Dixie, Tried Men and True, or Union Life in Dixie, 0817317503, 0-8173-1750-3, 978-0-8173-1750-8, 9780817317508, , , Tried Men and True, or Union Life in Dixie, 0817385789, 0-8173-8578-9, 978-0-8173-8578-1, 9780817385781,

Tried Men and True, or Union Life in Dixie

Thomas J. Cypert, edited and with an introduction by Margaret M. Storey

Tried Men and True, or Union Life in Dixie highlights in emotional detail the local tensions between Unionists and Confederates in the Civil War South and offers a rare first-person account of the guerrilla war that devastated Western Tennessee.

Thomas Jefferson Cypert (1827-1918) was a staunch Union man of Wayne County, Tennessee. In 1863, he helped organize the Second Tennessee Mounted Infantry, a regiment of loyalist Southerners enlisted to combat Confederate cavalry in West Tennessee and Northern Alabama. Tried Men and True is Cypert’s memoir of his time as Captain of Company A, including his capture by Confederate cavalry and subsequent daring escape, in which he was aided by local Union sympathizers and slaves.

After the Civil War, Cypert served two terms in the Tennessee State Senate, one of them during the heated first years of Reconstruction, when Tennessee disenfranchised former rebels and attempted to establish Unionist Republican rule in the state. Cypert clearly wrote his memoir to defend Unionism, condemn secession and rebellion, and support loyalists’ claims for post-war power through an account of their wartime sacrifices. Never before published, the manuscript has been preserved in nearly perfect condition by Cypert’s descendants over the generations. This book is a remarkable and engagingly written account of resistance to the Confederacy by a group of southwestern Tennessee loyalists.

Margaret M. Storey is an associate professor of History at DePaul University, and the author of Loyalty and Loss: Alabama’s Unionists in the Civil War and Reconstruction.

“Reminiscences by Southern unionists involved in anti-guerrilla warfare are rare. Tried Men and True is significant primarily because of the quality of its accounts of military operations. It deals with recruiting, combat strategies, patrolling, mistreatment of prisoners, and civilian life in the guerrilla zone. The Southern white author's racial egalitarian views and the capture/escape account are especially unusual. It is extremely engaging.”--John V. Cimprich, author of Slavery's End in Tennessee and Fort Pillow, A Civil War Massacre, and Public Memory

“Tried Men and True offers valuable information about Unionists in Tennessee, which places Cypert's account within a growing literature on dissent in the Confederacy. Readers will find a great deal of anecdotal testimony about the travails of Unionists-and the perfidy of Rebels-all recounted in a colorful style.”--Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Confederate War, Lee and His Generals in War and Memory, and The Union War